Re Joint Venture

PipeHawk PLC
4 March 2002



Re Joint Venture 

PipeHawk plc is pleased to announce the signing of a formal agreement setting up
SUMO, a new franchise operation offering an underground utility detection
service to utility companies, construction companies and home-owners planning
extensions or other major projects. The agreement, foreshadowed in the latest
annual report, establishes SUMO as a joint venture operation between PipeHawk,
Geotec Surveys and Franchise Concepts Ltd, with each partner holding a one-third
interest.

Geotec is a leading underground survey and mapping company, while Franchise
Concepts is a business development specialist.

The SUMO franchise will offer PipeHawk's unique Ground Penetrating (GPR)
technology alongside radio frequency locators, a fibre optic tracing system and
more traditional methods such as metal detection.

PipeHawk Managing Director Mike Bushell said: 'Users of SUMO are expected to
include utility and construction companies that need the reassurance of
professional utility detection, as well as home-owners seeking to limit the risk
and cost of disruptive damage during the construction of extensions, swimming
pools or landscaping.'

PipeHawk's GPR technology has been developed to detect all underground objects,
including plastic pipes and fibre optic cables. Uniquely, it utilises software
that presents data in an easily viewable form, thus removing the need for expert
interpretation, so that it can be used with minimal training.

Operating from strikingly branded vans in black and yellow livery, SUMO is
currently being piloted in the South East. The franchise partners plan to set up
at least six more franchises elsewhere in the UK by October, with a planned
rollout of 100 over the next three years. Franchise holders will be expected to
have appropriate backgrounds in the utility and construction industries.

 
For further information contact:

Mike Bushell, Managing Director, PipeHawk plc:                 01420 590990
Allan Piper, Blackstone Business Communications:               020 7251 2544
                                                               07050 203304
John Finn or Sam Smith, J M Finn & Co:                         020 7860 6352
 


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